Tag: stories to live by (page 2)

Piano Stories

“I tell stories not to play on your sympathies but to suggest how stories can control our lives, for there is a part of me that has never been able to move past these stories, a part of me that will be chained to these stories as long as I live,” (King, 2003.) ~ Mid-morning Saturday, a friend sat at… (read more)

First Three Weeks

The new school year is just past three weeks gone. The second week flew by; I liked almost every moment of each school day. The first week however, simply slogged along; I felt frustrated. I’m teaching at a different school this year. I am no longer the ‘single story’ high school ELA, Arts Ed and Outdoor teacher, though I am… (read more)

Choosing Joy

Last week I received two letters in the mail. I wasn’t surprised until I realized that the letters had been addressed by me. I’d written them the previous summer during a difficult period. At the time, the letters were a reflective activity for a summer institute I was completing. The words on each envelope were in my handwriting yet the… (read more)

Home, Always.

Last week I moved out of one school and into another. Mostly, that’s true. However, the stories remain. I’ve brought all of them with me. All of the resources, exemplars and memorabilia are now packed and sitting in boxes in a different building. The packing of all those stories happened in a flurry of four days. A week earlier, 30… (read more)

In Their Words

Today, following our school’s annual awards ceremony, I sat on the grass and watched students and teachers play soccer. I was too spent to move. I had kicked off my shoes, I had crossed my legs and was just soaking it all in. One student was playing soccer in flip-flops and a pink dress; some kids where eating tubes of… (read more)

Opening Doors

Stories Matter. Lately I’ve been studying the work of Thomas King. He asserts, and I agree with him, that once a story is heard, it cannot be unheard. Yet there is more to the ‘cannot be unheard-conversation.’ Certainly, in King’s work he digs deeper. In classrooms, however, though stories are heard, they are often made silent or kept hidden. I… (read more)

Listening with Story

I am a storyteller. I love listening to stories. When I was a young girl I’d follow my Dad and my sister on treks as they talked plant botany, Dad pausing every once in a while to turn and change the science into narrative, “Wolf willow has an interesting story.” He’d stand feet planted shoulder-width apart, take off his well-warn… (read more)

Stories Need Attending

A month ago I wrote about a poem I had previously shared with my grad-writing group and had received little feedback. Later, an instructor, suggested, “It is an interrupted narrative that metacommunicates about its own limits and explodes conventions of pedagogy by falling silent at the very moment a conclusion is expected” (Ellsworth, 2005). Though I feel she was being… (read more)

Stories to Live By (Stories to Leave By)

Every other Tuesday I attend a writing/story group. Attendance isn’t a requirement of my graduate work, but yet I feel it is a useful space to share stories with other grad students who tend to have a relational narrative way of living and being with the world. Along with my instructor, there are six of us. Everyone shares.   Last Tuesday… (read more)
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